Unraveled (Enemies to Lovers / 18+)

8

ethan
PRESENT DAY

Last night was fine.

Not extraordinary. Not exciting. Not fulfilling.

Just fine.

I invited Ramona up to my room — a girl I met at the hotel bar that same night after we talked for sometime about our similar career paths. Only instead of business law, she works in criminal law, which makes me feel a particular combination of envious and interested.

Ramona doesn't have time for a relationship with the stress of her career. She tells me this is the first vacation she's been on since a family trip to Disney World when she was eight. She says she wants to make it a memorable one, and she wants to go back to work completely stress free.

The way her leg graced mine and her eyes moved from my eyes to my lips again and again was enough of an invitation to move forward with bringing her up to my room for some partially drunken, stress relieving sex.

Only she doesn't rise to the expectation I've created for her in my head.

Usually when a girl is down with meaningless sex, she's fairly experienced and understands that it doesn't need to be anything more than two people using each other to get some kind of release. But something about Ramona tells me she actually doesn't have a lot of time for relationships or sex, because she has a hard time keeping up.

I'll applaud her persistence though because after I've made her come twice, she's finally able to get me to do the same. She even leaves immediately after we're done despite it only being four in the morning, saying she doesn't stay over with guys she hooks up with.

I like not having to ask girls to leave. It makes me feel like less of an asshole.

So again. It was fine.

But when I awake that next morning in the hopes that the stress of work, traveling, and having to exert all remaining energy into being civil with the parasite next door, I feel anything but stress free.

The blood-curdling scream at eight o'clock wakes me first. As I try to look around to establish my surroundings, I hear heavy pounding against what sounds like the wall from the room beside mine.

After rubbing my eyes and sitting up, I realize it's not coming from the wall, but from the partitioning door that separates my room from Regan's.

What the fuck?

With a racing heart and panic saturating every visible inch of me, I spring out of bed and rush to the door all while frantically unlocking it as quickly as I can.

I may not like the girl but if I hear a scream like that, I immediately assume someone is in danger and needs help.

When I throw the door open, I see a barefaced Regan with her back pressed into a corner. Her arms are crossed over her stomach until she shakily raises her arm and points to the complete opposite side of the room with horror wiping over her expression.

"What the fuck? What—"

I look where she silently tells me to, seeing nothing but a gigantic spider crawling slowly up the side of the wall by the sliding glass door.